Beer Pairing at Judges' Hill Restaurant

I met Chefs Rob and Sarah of Judges' Hill Restaurant at the Independence Brewery's open house this New Year's Day. The two chefs were promoting a beer dinner they're putting on January 16th. Both seemed really excited about the event, which they have planned themselves.

I love beer pairings, especially when a dish has been prepared specifically with a beer in mind. Especially when the chefs are so enthusiastic!

If you're a like minded Austinite, consider attending Judges' Hill Restaurant's beer pairing on January the 16th. They're serving a five course meal with a selection of Independence Brewing Company's beer.

I've transcribed the menu below:

Austin Amber paired with Boursin and portabella crostini with oven dried cherry tomato & fried boudin balls with spicy remoulade.

Bootlegger brown with kobe slider with sage derby, mole, balsamic onions, house-made sweet pickles, parmesan-truffle gaufrettes.

Stash IPA with butter lettuce wedge, champagne soaked apricots & cherries, bleu cheese, smoked pistachio vinaigrette, candied pistachios.

Freestyle Wheat with shrimp, chevre & black pepper grits, braised collard greens, cirtus chipotle vinaigrette.

Convict Hill Stout with up-side down molasses pear cake, convict hill ice cream, convict hill caramel, toasted almonds.

You can make your reservations at (512) 495-1800.

Update: You can read about and see photos from Jennie's test of this dinner here.

Brew Masters

Sam Calagione is the Indiana Jones of brewing. I've met him, so I realize he wears no whip, signature hat, or gun. As far as I'm aware, he doesn't make a habit of getting into fist-fights with Nazis either. Too bad, I think it would make good TV.

But Sam does seem to run through life with a sense of determination, running his brewery while cracking jokes and solving beer puzzles. Close enough to Indy for me.

You may have guessed that I recently watched an episode of Brew Masters called "Chicha". That's the episode where Sam goes to Peru, loses his luggage, and tries to track down the greatest treasure of the Incas: their beer.

Predictably, the episode is a riot. The historical method of brewing Chicha requires chewing on corn and spitting it into the mash tun. Sam wants a fairly large batch of the brew, requiring 40 pounds of mouth-moistened corn. The challenge is a serious one that leads to company-wide saliva tests and epic corn chewing and spitting sessions. Dogfish Head must be a fun place to work.

I loved the episode, but I do wish Discovery would produce the show with a little more of a documentary, rather than reality-TV style. I have some nerdy questions:

• What Peruvian spices did Sam add to the beer?
• Assuming that traditional Chicha brewers don't get those nifty plastic vials from White Labs, how is the Chicha wort inoculated? Is it a wild yeast? Do they use magic spoons?
• It looked like the Chicha Sam was served in Peru was fermenting like crazy, giving it a foamy head. Was it very carbonated? How did the Dogfish Head results compare?
• How did the Peruvian brewers cool the wort?
• What are the Chicha pubs like when American beer archaeologists aren't raiding them?
• Why doesn't Sam wear a whip and fedora?

 If you're in Austin, you definitely should consider watching the episode at the Alamo Ritz downtown. To sweeten the deal they even played a few episodes of Drunk History this weekend. Cheers!

Beer Blogger Conference App

I'll be visiting Boulder Colorado with a crew of about 100 other rowdy bloggers for the Beer Bloggers Conference this coming weekend.

I expect there to be lots of twitter traffic for this event, so you'll want to keep your eye on the official conference #BBC10 twitter hash tag. To help you with this, the Moving Average software department create a free Android App for you: #BBC10 (note this link only works on android phones). You can find it by searching for BBC10 in the Android Market app. 

I think it will become more and more common for medium-to-large events to have custom phone apps available for them. My hope is that this app encourages social behavior on twitter related to the Beer Bloggers Conference. Note that you don't need to understand twitter or have a twitter account to use this app. Anyone can download the app, use it to watch the conversations, and hopefully want to get involved.

The app is totally unofficial, the Beer Blogger Conference had nothing to do with it. It's my fault if you don't like it. If you do like it, that's my fault too. Let me know.

How does the app work? It monitors a twitter search following the #BBC10 hash tag. The app Periodically checks for updates. If it finds one, it'll let you know. You can scroll through the list of tweets. If you touch a tweet, you can follow any links and also reply or retweet using your favorite twitter app with a click of a button.

Let me know what you think!

P.S.: Need an Android app like this for your conference or event? Let me know and maybe I can sneak you into the beta program. Need an iPhone app? In the future, yes. For this conference it's probably too late.

Uchiko Media Event

Warning: Sometimes I attend events that feature food but not beer. Feel free to skip this one if you're into beer but not food.

I had the incredibly good fortune of being invited to a media mixer at Uchiko this September. Uchiko is one of the closest things in Austin to a completely imagineered experience. Yes, I'm comparing Uchiko to Disney. And yes, I consider this a good thing.

Like Disney's best attractions, Uchiko lives in a universe with its own rules. As a visitor, you never touch and rarely even see plastic. The menus are paper and cardboard. The check arrives in a cardboard folio.

The walls are decorated with unfamiliar objects and curious antiques. The food is prepared with what might be new flavor combinations and unusual ingredients. The furniture has the weight of careful craftsmanship.

I want to talk more about the Uchiko experience, but for now check out my video from the event:

Finally, you can find my photos from that night here.

Turbo Interview with Two Ladies of Craft Beer: Stevie and Taylor

I interviewed Stevie and Taylor at the end of the Beer for Boobs Brunch. They tell us a bit about how and why to support women in craft beer, and also a little insight into their future plans. It's a short video, so watch and learn about this trending group bringing a fun new perspective to the craft beer universe.